DOCSLIB.ORG

Sir Henry Wood: the First Knight of the Proms

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Sir Henry Wood: the First Knight of the Proms Sir Henry Wood: The first knight of the Proms Sir Henry Wood dreamed of bringing classical music to the masses - and did just that. But a new history of the concerts reveals what the effort cost him personally. Jessica Duchen delves into the private life of a public hero Published: 23 April 2007 His photograph is striking: the regular features, the trademark beard, the wide, intent eyes; a man whose public image had to be strong, but whose inner life was illumined by something essentially unworldly. This was Sir Henry Wood, the first, and for decades the only, conductor of the Proms. Summer in London has become unimaginable without the Proms. The annual jamboree of concerts at the Royal Albert Hall has made such an impact on the country's musical life that it's now being celebrated with a meaty new book, The Proms: a New History, and a conference that begins today at the British Library. The concerts were the brainchild of the impresario Robert Newman, but it was to the young Wood that he turned to transform his idea into reality. Wood became the public face of the Proms, remaining their ceaseless champion and the person who kept the series going at moments of crisis when they might have folded. The fact that he stayed in post from 1895 right through to 1944 is itself testimony to his astonishing tenacity. Who was Wood? The violinist Yehudi Menuhin described him in a BBC interview as "ebullient" and "vigorous". "I can't imagine anyone who had a broader base," Menuhin added, "and that came through not only in talking to him, but simply by his presence; he was a broad man... who spread space and strength about him." Wood's base was broad in many senses: he was a true "man of the people". Unlike his rival Sir Thomas Beecham, he was no child of privilege. Beecham, born into the wealthy pharmaceutical family, had the wherewithal to found his own orchestra. Wood, born on 3 March 1869 in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, grew up in a cottage behind the shop on Oxford Street where his father sold model steam engines. The boy Henry's passion for music was much encouraged by his family. He attended the Royal Academy of Music, intending to become an accompanist and vocal coach. Later, he cut his conducting teeth on opera in the provinces, doing Gilbert and Sullivan in seaside resorts for a pittance, often giving seven performances a week. His intense work ethic never left him, and he expected the same from his musicians (with varied results). He prided himself on never being a minute late. Once, in 1912, when his taxi crashed en route to a concert, he simply bandaged his injuries and went on with the job. "Henry Wood, and did," quipped a cartooning colleague's drawing of the battered maestro. Newman approached him in 1894 with the concept of promenade concerts. "I am going to run nightly concerts to train the public in easy stages," he said. "Popular at first, gradually raising the standard until I have created a public for classical and modern music." A wealthy doctor, George Cathcart, agreed to fund the series on condition that Wood alone conducted. The venue - the Queen's Hall, at 1 Langham Place, London W1 - was brand new, full of Art Nouveau curlicues and cupids. Those Prom programmes bore little resemblance to today's. Typically, a concert would last around three hours, involving an eclectic mix of popular orchestral and instrumental pieces and solo songs, starting at the serious end, lightening up later, possibly sandwiching a premiere between two popular favourites. With promenade tickets priced at a shilling, and an informal atmosphere - you could eat, drink and smoke - the stage was set for an "omnibrow" music festival for all. Wood's task was to take music to the people, in the expectation that sooner or later the people would go to music. Wood's autobiography, My Life of Music, is peppered with pithy stories of his encounters with the great and good as they trooped through the portals of the Queen's Hall. There were happy visits from Sibelius, Elgar and Grieg (though the Norwegian composer fell over on his way on to the platform), and misunderstandings with Schoenberg over the first UK performance of his Five Orchestral Pieces, which were hissed. At Wood's Golden Jubilee celebration concert in 1938, Sergei Rachmaninov played his own Second Piano Concerto; the event also featured the premiere of Vaughan Williams's Serenade to Music, written especially for the occasion. Between 1889 and 1944, Wood conducted the world or British premieres of no fewer than 716 works by 356 composers. The list includes such classics as Janacek's Sinfonietta, Kodaly's Dances of Galanta, four of Mahler's symphonies and Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin. To the restive orchestra, rehearsing Schoenberg's Five Orchestral Pieces, Wood remarked, "Stick to it... this is nothing compared to what you'll be playing in 25 years' time!" The world premiere of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance Marches was a different story. At the end of No 1, Wood wrote in his autobiography, "The people simply rose and yelled... Little did I think then that the lovely, broad melody of the trio would one day develop into our second national anthem - 'Land of Hope and Glory'." The Last Night of the Proms, in which it is, of course, an annual fixture, originated in a 1905 concert marking the centenary of the Battle of Trafalgar. For it, Wood composed his Fantasia on British Sea Songs and programmed Arne's "Rule, Britannia", never imagining that his public would demand a rerun of both every year. Wood apparently retained a hint of "the lower middle class" in his accent. In rehearsal, he once demanded "Horns, what are you a-doing of?" Later, someone gently told him that this was grammatically incorrect. Next time, he called out, "Horns, what are you a-doing?" only to hear the entire orchestra chorus back: "OF!" His great rivalry with Beecham, spiced with class warfare, he simply ignored in his autobiography (as Beecham ignored him). Wood's book, though, missed out much more than that - notably, the truth about his private life. His first wife, Olga, was a Russian singer; Wood described her in his autobiography as Princess Olga Ouroussoff (apparently this was a tad exaggerated and her real name was Mikhailov). The couple led an idyllic life, but Olga died in 1909 and when Wood remarried, it was to Muriel Greatrex, his personal assistant: the daughter of an army major, she nurtured a passion for travel, but little appreciation of either music or domesticity. They had two daughters, Tania and Avril. In 1939, Wood unburdened himself in a startling document entitled "My Confession". "For nearly 20 years," he wrote, "I went through the most trying and difficult life that any married man could possibly endure. My wife (Muriel M Wood) certainly possessed one of the worst and most difficult tempers imaginable..." Several pages later came perhaps the most painful line: "Muriel always hated and despised musicians." Eventually, after two decades masking private misery with typical tenacity, Wood encountered the woman who had been his favourite singing pupil in the 1900s, Jessie Linton, née Goldsack, now a widow. Their renewed friendship, incorporating the kinds of discussions about music that Wood missed with Muriel, soon deepened. In 1935, Sir Henry walked out on Muriel in Rome. He demanded a divorce; she refused. He was not free to remarry. He and Linton hoped to set up home with Wood's daughter Tania as a third party to make the arrangement respectable, but Tania backed out, instead travelling with her mother to Japan, where Muriel's brother, Cecil Greatrex, was the British consul in Nagasaki. Wood and Linton moved in together anyway, a daring step in those days. Linton even changed her name by deed poll to "Lady Jessie Wood". Fortunately, no one seems to have begrudged the couple their happiness - except Tania; after the rift, Wood saw her again only once. Even Muriel's brother was sympathetic to Wood. A letter from Cecil Greatrex to Tania in 1936 chronicles his horror at the revelation of "a household where father and daughters were united in submitting... to a reign of continual petty tyranny ... everyone has marvelled that your father managed to stick it all these years." Wood remained a brusque individual, hypersensitive about his advancing age, loathe to lighten his schedule even when his health demanded it. His tenacity proved its worth. Three days after the declaration of war, the BBC decided it could not continue to fund the Proms. Wood was determined to find alternative backing for the 1940 and 1941 seasons, and succeeded so well that, the following year, the corporation came crawling back. His beloved Queen's Hall, though, was gone for good, taking a direct hit during the Blitz. Wood was photographed standing atop the rubble, defiant. He did not live to see the war end. He conducted his last concert on 28 July 1944; three weeks later, he was dead. Every year at the Last Night of the Proms, a bronze bust of Wood is ritually crowned with a laurel wreath. It's a touching tribute to a man whose mission was to bring music to the people, and the people to music. Henry Wood could, and did. 'The Proms: a New History', edited by Jenny Doctor and David Wright, is published by Thames & Hudson, priced £24.95. To order your copy for £21.95 including postage and packing in the UK only (overseas costs on request), call 0845 058 5878 with credit card details, quoting 'Independent Offer' .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Tempus Magazine February 12, 2021
    RE:VIEW RE:VIEW ITALIAN STYLE STEPS THE SUMMER OF MUSIC BEGINS WITH THE RETURN OF THE BBC PROMS ONTO THE PODIUM Plus + • Earl Spencer dives into English history • HOFA Gallery celebrates the mothers of mankind • Start your engines for Salon Privé • Save the Date: your luxury events calendar PROUD TO BE THE OFFICIAL TOAST OF FORMULA 1® #FERRARITRENTOF1 DRINK RESPONSIBLY The F1 logo, FORMULA 1, F1, GRAND PRIX and related marks are trademarks of Formula One Licensing BV, a Formula 1 company. All rights reserved. 90 91 MUSIC | BBC PROMS Summer of sound PARALLEL UNIVERSES Composer Britta Byström presents a world premiere inspired by the notion of a ‘hierarchical multiverse’ The world’s biggest classical festival returns to and violinist Jennifer Pike takes on Sibelius’ Violin Concerto in D minor, op.47. the Royal Albert Hall for six weeks of music 10 August STRAVINSKY FROM MEMORY The Aurora Orchestra returns to the Proms to mark the 50th anniversary of Igor Stravinsky’s death with a rendition of his Firebird Suite, performed entirely from memory. 11 August ABEL SELAOCOE: AFRICA MEETS EUROPE South African cellist Abel Selaocoe redefines his instrument in this blend of traditional styles with improv, singing and body percussion. A delight of boundary-crossing fusion. 15 August THE BBC SINGERS & SHIVA FESHAREKI Experimental composer and turntable artist Feshareki joins conductor Sofi Jeannin and the BBC Singers for a choral playlist that brings the Renaissance to the present day. 19 August his year, the Royal Albert Hall marks it was an opportunity to build a repertoire of its 150th anniversary, and what better rare and under-performed works, as well as T way to celebrate than by welcoming introducing new composers.
    [Show full text]
  • Britten Connections a Guide for Performers and Programmers
    Britten Connections A guide for performers and programmers by Paul Kildea Britten –Pears Foundation Telephone 01728 451 700 The Red House, Golf Lane, [email protected] Aldeburgh, Suffolk, IP15 5PZ www.brittenpears.org Britten Connections A guide for performers and programmers by Paul Kildea Contents The twentieth century’s Programming tips for 03 consummate musician 07 13 selected Britten works Britten connected 20 26 Timeline CD sampler tracks The Britten-Pears Foundation is grateful to Orchestra, Naxos, Nimbus Records, NMC the following for permission to use the Recordings, Onyx Classics. EMI recordings recordings featured on the CD sampler: BBC, are licensed courtesy of EMI Classics, Decca Classics, EMI Classics, Hyperion Records, www.emiclassics.com For full track details, 28 Lammas Records, London Philharmonic and all label websites, see pages 26-27. Index of featured works Front cover : Britten in 1938. Photo: Howard Coster © National Portrait Gallery, London. Above: Britten in his composition studio at The Red House, c1958. Photo: Kurt Hutton . 29 Further information Opposite left : Conducting a rehearsal, early 1950s. Opposite right : Demonstrating how to make 'slung mugs' sound like raindrops for Noye's Fludde , 1958. Photo: Kurt Hutton. Britten Connections A guide for performers and programmers 03 The twentieth century's consummate musician In his tweed jackets and woollen ties, and When asked as a boy what he planned to be He had, of course, a great guide and mentor. with his plummy accent, country houses and when he grew up, Britten confidently The English composer Frank Bridge began royal connections, Benjamin Britten looked replied: ‘A composer.’ ‘But what else ?’ was the teaching composition to the teenage Britten every inch the English gentleman.
    [Show full text]
  • NABMSA Reviews a Publication of the North American British Music Studies Association Vol
    NABMSA Reviews A Publication of the North American British Music Studies Association www.nabmsa.org Vol. 3, No. 2 (Fall 2016) In this issue: • Cecilia Björkén-Nyberg, The Player Piano and the Edwardian Novel • John Carnelly, George Smart and Nineteenth-Century London Concert Life • Mark Fitzgerald and John O’Flynn, eds., Music and Identity in Ireland and Beyond • Eric Saylor and Christopher M. Scheer, eds., The Sea in the British Musical Imagination • Jürgen Schaarwächter, Two Centuries of British Symphonism: From the Beginnings to 1945 • Heather Windram and Terence Charlston, eds., London Royal College of Music Library, MS 2093 (1660s–1670s) The Player Piano and the Edwardian Novel. Cecilia Björkén-Nyberg. Abingdon, UK and New York: Routledge, 2016. xii+209 pp. ISBN 978-1-47243-998-7 (hardcover). Cecilia Björkén-Nyberg’s monograph The Player Piano and the Edwardian Novel offers an intriguing exploration of the shifting landscape of musical culture at the turn of the twentieth century and its manifestations in Edwardian fiction. The author grounds her argument in musical discussions from such novels as E. M. Forster’s A Room with a View, Max Beerbohm’s Zuleika Dobson, and Compton Mackenzie’s Sinister Street. Despite the work’s title, the mechanical player piano is—with rare exception—ostensibly absent from these and other fictional pieces that Björkén-Nyberg considers; however, as the author explains, player pianos were increasingly popular during the early twentieth century and “brought about a change in pianistic behaviour” that extended far beyond the realm of mechanical music making (183). Because of their influence on musical culture more broadly, Björkén-Nyberg argues for the value of recognizing the player piano’s presence in fictional works that otherwise “appear to be pianistically ‘clean’ ” of references to the mechanical instruments.
    [Show full text]
  • The Founding Years Sir Thomas Beecham Conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra
    THE FOUNDING YEARS SIR THOMAS BEECHAM CONDUCTS THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA MOZART Symphony No.35 Haffner CHABRIER España Excerpts from: SIBELIUS The Tempest MOZART Mass in C minor HANDEL Israel in Egypt SIR THOMAS BEECHAM AND THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA AT THE 1934 LEEDS FESTIVAL Though few realised it, the 1930s would see A Mass of Life (and the première of Walton’s the end of many of the great British provincial Belshazzar’s Feast, although he handed that choral festivals, at least in the way in which over to assistant conductor Malcolm Sargent). they had held sway in England for a couple of Another bonus was that, as the choral pieces hundred years. Some, like the Three Choirs, were prepared by local chorus masters, he had dated back to the early eighteenth century and, more time to prepare orchestral works and at the beginning of the twentieth, important he could invite eminent soloists. Orchestrally, festivals were still being held in Birmingham, the 1934 festival was especially rich, with Leeds, Norwich and Sheffield. They were Schnabel in Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto gargantuan affairs: although generally and Szigeti playing Mozart’s Violin Concerto lasting less than a week, with morning as No.4, while the symphonies included both well as evening concerts the musical ground Brahms’s and Sibelius’s Second; there was covered was formidable. Sir Thomas Beecham Tchaikovsky’s Third Orchestral Suite, Delius’s (1879-1961), who had known them all his Paris, Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel and – of life, was inclined to write disparagingly of outstanding interest – the first performance them, especially their orchestral standards, in England of Sibelius’s incidental music but he was being no more than truthful for The Tempest, among the most recent when he described how ‘within three or works to come from the composer’s pen.
    [Show full text]
  • JOHN IRELAND 70Th Birthday Concert
    JOHN IRELAND 70th Birthday ConCert Sir ADRIAN BOULT conductor EILEEN JOYCE piano LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA JOHN IRELAND 70th Birthday ConCert The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts were BBC Symphony Orchestra’s Chief Conductor, inaugurated in 1895 in London’s principal the move from one rostrum to another was concert venue, Queen’s Hall. Following the effected with great smoothness: “I was only hall’s destruction during World War II, the out of work for two or three days,” he liked to BBC Promenade concerts have continued say. For Ireland’s birthday concert he was the ever since at the Royal Albert Hall. The annual ideal choice. Boult’s wide embrace of English summer season is in effect a huge music music had long included Ireland’s music: he festival, drawing the greatest artists and had premièred These things shall be in his BBC orchestras from all over the world. In the days, and in 1936 encouraged the composer to years after the 1939–45 war it became quite turn his Comedy Overture, originally composed usual to celebrate composers’ anniversaries, for brass band, into A London Overture, so sometimes devoting a concert entirely to giving it a wider and more popular following. their music. The concert recorded on this CD, Ireland had a great love of London, revealed in given on 10 September 1949 to mark John such cameos as his picturesque London Pieces Ireland’s 70th birthday, was conducted by Sir for piano with their nostalgic titles ‘Chelsea Adrian Boult (1889–1983). Boult described Reach’ and ‘Soho Forenoons’. A London Overture the composer
    [Show full text]
  • Dame Joan Hammond (1912-1966) 2
    AUSTRALIAN EPHEMERA COLLECTION FINDING AID DAME JOAN HILDA HOOD HAMMOND (1912-1996) PERFORMING ARTS PROGRAMS AND EPHEMERA (PROMPT) PRINTED AUSTRALIANA JULY 2018 Dame Joan Hilda Hood Hammond, DBE, CMG (24 May 1912 – 26 November 1996) was a New Zealand born Australian operatic soprano, singing coach and champion golfer. She toured widely, and became noted particularly for her Puccini roles, and appeared in the major opera houses of the world – the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, La Scala, the Vienna State Opera and the Bolshoi. Her fame in Britain came not just from her stage appearances but from her recordings. A prolific artist, Hammond's repertoire encompassed Verdi, Handel, Tchaikovsky, Massenet, Beethoven, as well as folk song, art song, and lieder. She returned to Australia for concert tours in 1946, 1949 and 1953, and starred in the second Elizabethan Theatre Trust opera season in 1957. She undertook world concert tours between 1946 and 1961. She became patron and a life member of the Victorian Opera Company (since 1976, the Victorian State Opera – VSO), and was the VSO's artistic director from 1971 until 1976 and remained on the board until 1985. Working with the then General Manager, Peter Burch, she invited the young conductor Richard Divall to become the company's Musical Director in 1972. She joined the Victorian Council of the Arts, was a member of the Australia Council for the Arts opera advisory panel, and was an Honorary Life Member of Opera Australia. She was important to the success of both the VSO and Opera Australia. Hammond embarked on a second career as a voice teacher after her performance career ended.
    [Show full text]
  • Proms 2005 1
    Themes and anniversaries Proms themes and anniversaries • The Sea Four of the most famous sea overtures are • Fairy Tales programmed throughout the season: Berlioz’s • End of the Second World War overture The Corsair (Prom 1) sets the Proms • Anniversaries season off to a piratical start, Mendelssohn’s ‘The Hebrides’ overture (Prom 11) and Wagner’s overture to The Flying Dutchman The Sea (Prom 59) are two of the most evocative yet concise musical illustrations of storm-ridden Two hundred years on from Nelson’s seascapes, and Walton’s Portsmouth Point momentous victory over the French in the Overture gives yet another naval perspective to Battle of Trafalgar, and 100 years after Debussy the Last Night. composed La mer, the Proms takes as one of its key themes the inspiration the sea has Sir John Eliot Gardiner, his Monteverdi afforded to composers through the ages. Choir and English Baroque Soloists perform Haydn’s ‘Nelson’ Mass as the centrepiece Henry Wood’s Fantasia on British Sea-Songs – a of an all-Haydn Late Night Prom (Prom 7). staple of the Last Night of the Proms – was Formally entitled Missa in angustiis (Mass in composed in 1905 specifically to celebrate the time of Peril), it was written in 1798 when the centenary of Nelson’s triumph.This year, war against revolutionary France was at a low marking the work’s own centenary, the Proms ebb. Stanford’s Songs of the Sea draw on the restores Wood’s authentic naval bugle-calls, glories of England’s naval past with settings of which herald the regular sequence of poems by Sir Henry Newbolt (Prom 35).
    [Show full text]
  • Charles Villiers Stanford(1852-1924)
    Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) SOMMCD 0627 Songs of Faith, Love and Nonsense a b Roderick Williams baritone · James Way tenor Charles Villiers Andrew West piano Songs of Faith, Op.97 (1907) a* [19:05] bs The Cow and the Coward a 1:35 Stanford 1 Strong son of God, immortal Love 1:53 bt Barkerolle a 0:56 2 God and the universe 4:06 bu Dithyramb a 1:27 3 Faith 2:41 cl The Generous Parishioner a 2:06 n 4 To the Soul 4:04 cm Limmerich ohne Worte 0:52 5 Tears 4:26 cn The Boat Song b 1:46 6 Joy, Shipmate, Joy! 1:52 co Nileinsamkeit a 1:22 Songs of cp b Three Songs of Robert Bridges, Op.43 (1891) a** [7:33] The Aquiline Snub 1:43 cq b 7 Since thou, O fondest and truest 2:24 Tone Poem 1:34 Faith, Love cr a 8 I praise the tender flower 2:24 Gongdichtung 2:48 cs a 9 Say, O say! saith the music 2:43 A Visit of Elizabeth 1:37 and Nonsense The Triumph of Love, Op.82 (1903) b** [15:51] Four Songs from Shamus O’Brien, Op.61 (1896) *** [11:15] ct O one deep sacred outlet of my soul 2:24 bl My heart is thrall to Kitty's beauty b 3:49 including cu Like as the thrush in winter 3:11 bm Glengall b 2:31 dl When in the solemn stillness of the night 4:20 First Recordings bn Ochone, when I used to be young! a 2:51 dm I think that we were children 3:20 bo I love my ould Ireland a 2:03 dn O flames of passion 2:33 Nonsense Rhymes (pub.
    [Show full text]
  • Stanford’S Life and Music and of Department of Music His Contribution to the History and Development Palace Green Durham DH1 3RL of English Music
    Officers of the Society Aims of the Society President and Musical Advisor The Society was formed to further the Professor Jeremy Dibble appreciation, understanding and knowledge of Sir [email protected] Charles Villiers Stanford’s life and music and of Department of Music his contribution to the history and development Palace Green of English music. Durham DH1 3RL England The formal aims of the Society are: Chairman 1. To substantially widen the knowledge, under- John Covell, FCA standing and appreciation of the music of [email protected] Charles Villiers Stanford both in the United 1301 North Sutton Place Kingdom and overseas. Chicago, Illinois 60610 USA 2. To encourage performances of Stanford’s music and the music of his students and Secretary/Membership colleagues at the Royal College of Music and Dan Wilkinson [email protected] Cambridge University. Shenton, Tytherley Road, Winterslow 3. To increase understanding of Stanford’s life Salisbury, SP5 1PZ and music and of his contribution to the England development and history of British music. Honorary Treasurer 4. To encourage and support recordings of John Kennedy, FCA Stanford’s music. THE [email protected] 5. To provide members of the Society with an 145 Holland Gardens opportunity to share their love of English Brentford, Middlesex TW8 0AY music and to develop their knowledge of the England life and music of Charles Villiers Stanford Stanford and of his impact on the history of English Chairman Irish Branch music. SOCIETY Michael Webb [email protected]
    [Show full text]
  • Professor Jeremy Summerly 17 September 2020
    RADIO IN THE 78 RPM ERA (1920-1948) PROFESSOR JEREMY SUMMERLY 17 SEPTEMBER 2020 At 7.10 pm on 15 June 1920, a half-hour broadcast was given by Australian prima donna Dame Nellie Melba (‘the world’s very best artist’). Singing from a workshop at the back of the Marconi Wireless and Telegraph Company, the 59-year old soprano described her Chelmsford recital as ‘the most wonderful experience of my career’. The transmission was received all around Europe, as well as in Soltan-Abad in Persia (now Arak in Iran) to the East, and Newfoundland (at the time a Dominion of the British Empire) to the West. Dame Nellie’s recital became recognized as Britain’s first official radio broadcast and the Daily Mail (predictably, perhaps, in its role as sponsor) described the event as ‘a great initiation ceremony; the era of public entertainment may be said to have completed its preliminary trials’. The Radio Corporation of America had been founded a year earlier, run by a young Russian- American businessman David Sarnoff. Sarnoff believed that ‘broadcasting represents a job of entertaining, informing and educating the nation, and should therefore be distinctly regarded as a public service’, words that were later echoed more famously by John Reith of the British Broadcasting Company. On 11 May 1922, daily radio transmissions of an hour began from the 7th floor of Marconi House at London’s Aldwych. The Marconi Company’s London station was known as 2LO and its first concert (for voice, cello, and piano) was broadcast on 24 June; the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) broadcast from Marconi House on 7 October.
    [Show full text]
  • VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Willow-Wood the Sons of Light Toward the Unknown Region Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus
    557798bk VW US 14/9/05 3:51 pm Page 12 VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Willow-Wood The Sons of Light Toward the Unknown Region Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus Roderick Williams, Baritone Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra David Lloyd-Jones 557798bk VW US 14/9/05 3:51 pm Page 2 Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) from the deep thought wherein he slept Light shall be light for ever and the darkness night, Willow-Wood • Toward the Unknown Region • The Sons of Light still two days younger than the morning star. Man shall awake and speak their names aloud This is the morning of the sons of light, and set a name on fire and wind and cloud The poems of the American Walt Whitman (1819-1892) into his score when he looks to the psalm tune Sine rejoice because they start upon their way; from whence all living creatures take delight. were published in Leaves of Grass, a collected works Nomine ‘and reaches a blazing climax in the final bars, singing they go, each clothed in his own day, Rejoice, man .stands among the sons of light. which in successive editions over 35 years from 1855 emblematic of the ultimate triumph of the soul’s destiny’. their orbits span the terrors of the height, added new poems at each appearance. Vaughan Williams The cantata Willow-Wood for baritone, women’s swifter than wind, as swift as thought, their flight. may have been first introduced to Whitman by his teacher voices and orchestra first appeared as a scena for baritone Stanford, who in his pioneering Elegiac Ode of 1884 had and piano in March 1903 when it was sung by Campbell Sing and rejoice, vast darkness, that you share been the first significant British composer to respond to McInnes in a concert at St James’s Hall, Piccadilly.
    [Show full text]
  • 557273 Bk Elgar US 14/01/2005 03:02Pm Page 5
    557273 bk Elgar US 14/01/2005 03:02pm Page 5 New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Once described as a well-kept secret, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra has over the past few years won international acclaim through its CDs. Within New Zealand it is recognised as the country’s leading performing arts Also available by these artists: ELGAR organisation. The orchestra gave its first public performance in March 1947, and its first and current Music Director, James Judd, was appointed in 1999. The orchestra numbers ninety players and gives over a hundred performances each year. These include seasons of major symphonic repertoire in eight centres and a wide range of special programmes. It Marches is involved in education programmes, performs family and schools concerts, accompanies opera and ballet productions and records for television, film, including The Lord of the Rings, and radio. It commissions and performs New Zealand Pomp and Circumstance • Polonia • Caractacus music and has a long recording history, which has seen it move into the world market and win international awards. The orchestra also administers the NZSO National Youth Orchestra. Among the distinguished musicians who have New Zealand Symphony Orchestra performed with the orchestra are Igor Stravinsky, William Walton, Vladimir Ashkenazy, James Galway, Yehudi Menuhin, Joan Sutherland, David Oistrakh, Antal Dorati, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Mstislav Rostropovich, Nigel Kennedy, Neville Marriner, André Gavrilov, Eduardo Mata, Andrew Litton, Peter Donohoe, Barry Douglas, Yan James Judd Pascal Tortelier, Alexander Lazarev, János Fürst, Matthias Bamert, Pascal Rogé, Vadim Repin, Kiri Te Kanawa, Malvina Major, Michael Houstoun, William Southgate, Hilary Hahn, Lang Lang and Jonathan Lemalu.
    [Show full text]